


Pyro's Treason

by dreamweaver11



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Administrator does not approve, Brief mention of m/m but not a significant part of the fic, Gen, He's not alone, Mild Language, Pyro is a traitor, Pyro starts secretly helping the other team, Story is set prior to Gray Mann and his robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 09:43:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11620974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamweaver11/pseuds/dreamweaver11
Summary: It wasn’t like Pyro intended to go out and be a traitor. It just kinda… happened.





	Pyro's Treason

It wasn’t like he intended to go out and be a traitor. It just kinda… happened. 

 

Perhaps it started when he walked in on the other team’s sniper and spy. They were all twisted together, grabbing at each other, and for all that it looked like an uncomfortable position on the crates, their faces – in that instant before they registered his presence – were almost blissful. Pyro knew a thing or two about bliss; that’s what fire meant to him, after all. So when they suddenly clutched each other and flinched away from him, he reacted without thinking, totally flustered. He dropped his flamethrower, letting it hang on its strap over his shoulder, and backed out the door he came in by, one hand over his face mask and the other pulling the door shut. 

                                             

Even through his thick mask, he could hear the faint sounds of shuffling and muffled curses. Of course, with usual terrible timing, his team’s soldier picked that instant to round the corner.

 

“THERE’S A SPY AROUND HERE!”  he shouted, gesturing wildly with his rocket launcher. “HAVE YOU SEEN HIM, MAGGOT?!” The faint sounds from the room stopped immediately.

 

Again, Pyro reacted without thinking. “Mmmrph mph phrm,” he said, pointing down the hallway, away from the room he’d just exited seconds before.

 

“GOOD WORK, PRIVATE! YOU’LL BE AWARDED A MEDAL FOR DOING YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY!” the man screamed as he bolted away. As the soldier rounded the next corner, screaming more patriotic nonsense, Pyro heaved a sigh. He wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved or guilty. Without touching the closed door, he slunk down the hallway, following his teammate.

 

That may have been the first time, but it certainly wasn’t the last time he’d committed treason.

 

-

 

The second time, a break was coming up and he was making his way back across the field. He’d gotten distracted by a particularly flashy fireball when he noticed the other team’s medic in an out-of-the-way corner, riddled with arrows in his chest, arms and legs. The man’s eyes were closed, his breathing laborious, his coat soaked with blood. Pyro felt a sudden stab of pity. Arrows _hurt_.

 

He gingerly approached the medic, anticipating a painful acknowledgement of his presence with either a dart gun or bone saw, but the man barely reacted to the sound of Pyro’s boots thumping against the floor. Peering around guiltily, he was relieved to see no teammates from either his side or the medic’s anywhere nearby. And from the blood trail, unless his team’s sniper chose to come looking for his prey, the medic had dragged himself away from the sniper’s view. Pyro looked at the other medic helplessly. He wasn’t sure what to do. It might be easier to simply press his flare gun against the man’s head and send him back to respawn, but dying was no fun. And anyway, there had been a series of respawn glitches recently, which made everyone nervous about dying.

 

Now, Pyro had awarded a few mercy killings in his time as a mercenary, and he’d often stopped to help an injured teammate back to base or to their medic, but this was an _enemy_. This man was on the other team, and Pyro was paid to kill him as many times as necessary.

 

…Oh well, no one had to know, right? He gently hoisted the medic up, slinging the man’s arm over his shoulders and supporting most of the man’s weight. Despite his efforts, the medic let out several pained grunts, dazedly opening his eyes. He didn’t seem to realize that Pyro wasn’t on his team though.

 

“Danke, Herr Pyro,” the man whispered, his eyes closing again. Up close, the Pyro could now see the wet matting of blood on the side of the medic’s head, indicating a run-in with a scout’s bat on top of his other injuries. That explained his imperceptive manner.

 

Shuffling forward with his burden, the Pyro wondered what had come over him. How was he supposed to get the medic to the other base without getting caught? If the other team saw him, they’d kill him on sight, and if the Administrator saw him, well… he didn’t want to think about it. He’d heard the rumors about the BLU soldier and the RED demo man, who had become friends outside of battle. It hadn’t gone well for them once the Administrator found out.

 

Luck was with him until he had passed the halfway point, as he hadn’t been spotted by either team thus far. However, he could hear voices up ahead, indicating that his luck was running out. He gently lowered the medic to the ground next to a crate, murmuring soothing nonsense to the man that everything would be fine and to keep quiet, before sneaking forward to see who was talking. Peeking carefully around the side of a building, he was both terrified and relieved to see a couple of the medic’s teammates loitering about.

 

Now he just had to figure out how to get them to their injured teammate without ending up dead in the process. He wasn’t fast like the scouts; he wouldn’t be able to outrun them if the enemy mercs saw him. He also couldn’t turn invisible like the spies.

 

Finally, he retreated back to the medic, still at a loss for what to do. He sighed, peering around as if inspiration would just be lying there on the ground waiting for him. But, hang on… if he could make the medic groan, loud enough to be heard, perhaps his teammates would come looking.

 

He felt a bit bad about causing the man any more pain, even if he was Pyro’s enemy, but it was the best idea he could come up with.

 

However, when he went to poke the medic, the man was totally unconscious. Even a rather cruel jiggling of one of the arrows didn’t wake him, and the sound he made was pathetically quiet. Pyro stood up, frustrated. _Someone_ had to attract the medic’s teammates. Someone… well, Pyro was someone, wasn’t he?

 

Scrambling into the crate next to the medic, the Pyro pulled the lid closed over himself, said a prayer that he wasn’t about to get killed in a messy and painful way, lifted his gas mask above his mouth, and let out a loud, pained groan.

 

The sound of conversation abruptly stopped, followed by a few mutterings of “What the bloody hell was _that_?” and “You heard that, right?” Footsteps sounded shortly afterward, and he could tell when the medic’s teammates saw the wounded man when shouts of “Bloody hell!”, “Doctor!” and “Doc!” reached his ears. The next few moments were some of the tensest Pyro could ever remember, but luckily the other team gathered up their wounded medic and carried him away without discovering his presence. When he could no longer hear them, he cautiously lifted the lid of the crate and made his escape back toward his own side. The call for ceasefire followed him home.

 

Of course, he had no idea that there would be such strange consequences from rescuing the other medic.

 

-

 

A few battles had passed since Pyro’s odd rescue attempt, killing as usual and no mercy from anyone, no call from the Administrator or from Ms. Pauling. Pyro thought he was in the clear.

 

Then he ran into the other team’s pyro. The end-of-day ceasefire had just been broadcast over the speakers and he was trying to find the flare gun that he’d dropped about half-way through the battle. Hearing a noise behind him, he’d spun around to find the other team’s pyro pointing a flare gun at _him_.

 

He froze. While it was technically against the rules to kill each other after ceasefire had been called, that didn’t stop some members of each team from offing an enemy outside working hours. It’s not like those that killed the enemy after hours were penalized much. And those killed were revived the next time respawn was turned on.

 

The other pyro hesitated, then mumbled a question. The two pyros had never had an issue understanding each other; they knew how their words sounded from both inside and outside their gas masks.

 

“Were you the pyro who helped my medic?” the other pyro asked.

 

“Um… maybe?” he hedged, shuffling guiltily in place.

 

“He thanked me. He thought you were me.” The other pyro seemed very confused, and he lowered the flare gun somewhat. “Why? He’s your enemy.”

 

Pyro looked away, recalling the pity he’d felt. “I… I don’t know. There were _arrows_. Arrows _hurt_. And… and respawn hasn’t been working right recently.” He stopped, feeling lost. “I don’t know,” he repeated miserably.

 

The other pyro seemed to be thinking hard about something. Finally, he switched the flare gun to his other hand and, surprisingly, offered it handle-first to Pyro.

 

“…You dropped this,” he said simply, sounding embarrassed and shy.

 

Only now could Pyro see that there was a familiar gouge along the gun, where he’d used it to deflect a blow from the other team’s spy awhile back. Pyro hesitantly reached out, careful to grasp the gun in such a way that his fingers weren’t near the trigger. No need to make the other man tense, after all, since the battle was over for the day and Pyro didn’t kill after hours. He thrust the gun into its holster, totally unsure of what to do now. The other pyro seemed equally bemused.

 

“Thanks,” Pyro mumbled into the awkward silence.

 

“Yeah.”

 

They both stared at each other through tinted lenses, then the other pyro slowly reached into a pocket of his suit, bringing out a small lighter. He flicked it open and lit it, a silent salute that both pyros understood instinctively. Then, he turned around and left, his boots quiet on the floorboards. After a moment, Pyro left too, not sure what exactly had happened but knowing that things were different now. Not that they wouldn’t kill each other in battle if they encountered each other, but now there was… a respect, maybe. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.

 

-

 

It started to become a habit. When he came across enemies that were unconscious, he left them alone instead of finishing them off. A few times, when mercenaries from the other team failed to notice him in a room, he just watched them pass instead of ambushing them. He wondered about their lives, if they had dreams, what their hobbies were, if they had any friends. He even wondered if they could have been his friends, if they’d been on the same side.

 

It’s not like he intended to be a traitor. But it was hard to stop now that he’d started. And the thoughts kept popping up, like balloons and firecrackers, at all the wrong moments.

 

He had his good days, though perhaps that depended on the definition of “good”. When the medicine he took to control his “pyro-vision” wasn’t working (or when he didn’t take it), and when the hallucinations overwhelmed him, he didn’t think traitorous thoughts, and he didn’t have any mercy on the other team. He barely remembered to avoid killing his own team. He kept telling himself that it was a good thing.

 

But if he was honest with himself, he felt less… burned out when the meds were working, when he felt pity, sympathy even, for the enemy mercs.

 

It seemed like there was a crackling fire warming him from the inside when he treated the other team members as if they were his own. And it felt more and more like cold, soggy ashes inside when he just killed them as usual.

 

It didn’t take very long for his few friends on his own team to notice.

 

“Hey son, ya look a little down,” the engineer remarked one night at dinner.

 

Pyro hardly had the energy to look at his friend. He shrugged noncommittally, pushing the food on his plate around with his fork. “Mmph mrph phrmmrr phrmrm,” he mumbled.

 

“Okay… well, if ya ever wanna talk about anything, you know where to find my workshop,” the kind-hearted Texan said, resting a gentle hand on Pyro’s shoulder before returning to his own meal. Thankfully, his friends usually had little trouble understanding him despite the gas mask muffling his words.

 

“So what’s up with yeh, Pyro?” asked the sniper as he sat down across from them. “I noticed ya didn’t really have yer head in the game t’day.”

 

Pyro ducked his head again as the engineer responded, “He’s just feeling a little tired.”

 

The sniper stuffed a forkful of potatoes in his mouth, musing over that as he chewed. “Well,” he said, “how ‘bout a campfire tonight? That always seems ta cheer yeh up.”

 

Pyro did perk up a little at that, but a wave of guilt damped down his enthusiasm again. “Mmph phm, mrrph mmphr phrrm mmrrmmph,” Pyro sighed. He was grateful for them trying to cheer him up, but he figured it might be his meds making him feel like this.

 

Sniper frowned. “Doc’s not messin’ with yer meds again, is he?” The last time their medic did that, Pyro’s hallucinations took a very dark turn off the battlefield. No one in the base liked the outcome of _that_ experiment.

 

Pyro shook his head. After all, it wouldn’t do much good to mess with something he wasn’t taking. And anyway, his medic hadn’t changed the prescription in weeks.

 

“Maybe ya need to look at adjusting them,” Engie suggested. “You’ve had quite a few bad days recently.”

 

Pyro appreciated his friend calling them “bad days” instead of “psychotic episodes”; their team’s scout was openly derisive, calling him a “freak”, and the heavy weapons guy and the spy just avoided him. The spy, he could understand – the other pyro seemed to make it his personal mission to roast the spy at least twice every battle, and his spy probably didn’t want any reminders about being burned to death on a daily basis. The Frenchman even avoided the dining hall when any variation of roasted pork was on the menu. But the heavy weapons guy… he could break Pyro in half with two fingers, yet the man wouldn’t look Pyro in the eye, er, face. Mask.

 

“…Mmrph phrmr mph phrmm phm,” Pyro admitted guiltily, looking down at his hands. He hadn’t been taking them. His fingers trembled slightly; they always did when he didn’t take his meds consistently.

 

His two friends exchanged looks.

 

“That ain’t good, mate,” Sniper said, concern in his tone. Concern, Pyro was relieved to note, that was _for_ him, not about him.

 

“Why not?” Engie pressed, brow furrowed.

 

Pyro hesitated, looking between his friends worriedly.

 

“It’s all right,” Sniper added, “We won’t think bad ‘bout ya. Yer our friend, we ain’t gonna throw ya under the bus.” The engineer nodded, smiling encouragingly.

 

Pyro looked down at his hands again. Bracing himself, he explained that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do his job if he wasn’t… hallucinating. He didn’t have anywhere else to go; no one else would be willing to hire him. And he was scared. He hunched in on himself. All those self-help books, he mused silently to himself, said that talking things out made you feel better, but it wasn’t working. He had gotten more out of burning them than reading them.

 

The engineer laid a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Hey now, pardner, it’ll be okay. We’ll help ya through this.”

 

“Yeah, mate,” the sniper added, pulling out his lighter and flicking it open. It was a Zippo lighter made of shiny brass that the sniper prized. Lighting it, the sniper placed it carefully on the table in front of Pyro; he knew that the little flame would get his friend’s attention. “…Do ya wanna talk about it more in Truckie’s workshop or my van?”

 

Mesmerized by the little flame, it took Pyro a moment to respond. “Mrph rrmph phrm,” he replied, shaking his head. Not right now. He wasn’t ready to admit to being a traitor, and he didn’t want his friends to get in trouble for knowing about it. If someone was gonna take the fall, he wanted it to only be himself.

 

Sniper sighed, removing his hat and raking a hand through his hair. “All right, let’s just go set up a campfire and light some things up, yeah?”

 

Pyro nodded, closing the lighter and handing it back as they all stood up, dinners abandoned.

 

-

 

After their conversation, the two started surreptitiously keeping a closer eye on the fire-bug. They couldn’t help but notice that he just lacked enthusiasm on his lucid days, sometimes disappearing for hours at a time on the battlefield when their team was holding their own. He rarely passed through respawn, and they couldn’t figure out what he was doing during that time. He also sometimes didn’t reappear after battle until dinner time. And they could not get a clear answer out of him – no pun intended – about where he was sneaking off to and what he was doing there.

 

It was getting so bad that the engineer went to the trouble of designing a tiny spy camera, secretly affixing it to Pyro’s gas mask one morning – not that it helped much. Pyro got caught in an explosion courtesy of the enemy demo early in the day, and since the camera wasn’t part of the respawn data, it was completely destroyed.

 

The engineer sighed when, at the end of the day, Pyro was missing from Soldier’s post-battle debriefing yet again.

 

Knowledge wouldn’t have eased the engineer’s mind at that point. While he and the sniper were sitting in the meeting, exchanging resigned and concerned glances, Pyro was about two miles away, midway between the bases and just outside the fence surrounding the battlefield. He was playing with a lighter, burning bits of dry shrubbery and transferring the flame from piece to piece without letting it go out.

 

The other pyro sat beside him, sharing the game.

 

The two interacted silently. For all the awkwardness of their initial encounter, it had been surprisingly easy to start meeting each other at random locations along the fence after the battle was done for the day. After all, they understood each other. They experienced similar psychoses, and they enjoyed similar things. It was relaxing not to have to pretend to be something that wasn’t natural to them, just to put their teams at ease.

 

They also quietly shared their guilty mercies in the form of charcoal tallies in the sand. It turned out that Pyro wasn’t the only one who had treated enemies with kindness.

 

It made him feel less alone.

 

Of course, both knew this tenuous peace wouldn’t last.

 

-

 

Before many weeks had passed, the Administrator summoned Pyro to her command room. He had been checked for weapons of any sort before being allowed in; the sentries had even confiscated his lighter. The place was heavily guarded, with thick steel doors that slammed and locked behind him, dogs that patrolled the courtyard outside, and cameras everywhere. And it was very, very cold.

 

Pyro shivered as he shuffled behind Ms. Pauling. He had no idea what the Administrator had seen, but he knew that any sort of interview with her wouldn’t end well – pain, psychological torture, and death were all potential options.

 

Now, to be clear, Pyro wasn’t afraid of death. He died every day; a final death wasn’t too frightening. And he wasn’t particularly afraid of pain, either. It was hard to be afraid of something he experienced all the time. The only time he didn’t hurt was when he was consumed by the hallucinations. That, and when he was literally playing with fire.

 

But psychological torture… Pyro knew he was unstable. He also knew that any claim he had to stability could be wrenched away from him quite easily by the woman in purple.

 

The cold truth was that he couldn’t withstand even a minor mental assault unscathed.

 

Pyro was shaking by the time they reached the Administrator’s main office, with its switchboard and its wall of screens, some dark and others alive with grainy black-and-white footage. Footage of him:  he and the other pyro passing a lighter back and forth, him hesitating to kill, him not ambushing his enemies but instead lurking harmlessly in the background.

 

She stared him down as he slunk forward behind Ms. Pauling.

 

“…Pyro.” The Administrator’s voice was frigid. “You know why you’re here.”

 

He stared at the screens behind her, before looking at her feet. “Mrph,” he replied guiltily, nodding his head and avoiding eye contact. He was terrified, and so glad that he wore a full-body suit. It wasn’t as good as armor, but it was a damn sight better than nothing.

 

The woman just looked at him in disgust. He could feel it.

 

“This isn’t acceptable behavior,” she finally said, icy gaze piercing. “Do you know what I’m going to do about it?”

 

Pyro shuddered. “Hrmm,” he mumbled, shaking his head, his hands clasped together fearfully. Ms. Pauling looked on in suppressed sympathy.

 

“Effective immediately, I’m going to restrict your medication,” came the cold voice. “And if this behavior _continues_ to occur, I will have you locked into the walk-in freezer, every night, without any flame sources, until you cease with this… _insubordination_. Am. I. Clear?”

 

“Mrph,” Pyro squeaked in affirmative, trembling. Goodbye lucidity. Goodbye friends. Goodbye heat and warmth and fire.

 

Just the thought of the cold, lonely hell of his new future frightened him almost out of his wits.

 

He practically leapt out of his skin at the unexpected, blaring sound of an alarm.

 

The woman in purple rolled her eyes in annoyance. “What is it _now_?” she demanded, turning back to her switchboard. Pressing a switch to silence the alarm, she picked up a wireless phone while Ms. Pauling leaned in close to hear.

 

“Mister Hale, if this is another one of your ridiculous challenges–” she snarled into the phone, abruptly stopping. “What do you mean, there’s a _third_ Mann? When was this discovered?” As she talked on the phone, she began flipping between different current video feeds, showing MannCo locations all over the American Southwest. She stopped at one showing unexpected movement. Ms. Pauling was hurriedly jotting down notes the entire time.

 

“Robots,” the Administrator hissed. “…Yes, Saxton, you heard me correctly. I will send the footage to your office with Ms. Pauling. …No, I _don’t_ know what they want, but they seem to be destroying everything at the hat factory–” She seemed to be getting angrier the longer the conversation dragged on. “I haven’t mobilized them yet, you fool, we’ve just discovered this situation. …Yes, yes, I’ll call a meeting as soon as we’re finished talking. Goodbye.” She hung up with somewhat more force than necessary.

 

“Ms. Pauling,” she said, turning to her assistant, “I take it you heard the whole conversation? Good. Call a joint meeting with both teams tomorrow morning. Yes, joint, don’t give me that look. Explain the situation. They have a new mission. Saxton Hale wishes to address them himself, though I don’t see how since he’s out of the country right now. Speak to Mister Bidwell about the details.” The commands were barked quickly in a no-nonsense tone.

 

Pyro remained frozen in place. He was very confused, but relieved that both women seemed to have forgotten his presence. Hoping to make his exit, he took one tentative step backward toward the door, only to be stopped in his tracks by the Administrator’s voice.

 

“Oh, and Pyro,” she remarked casually, a threat clear in her tone, “this information is not to be shared until the meeting tomorrow. Your insubordination will be overlooked for now, provided that you do not test my patience further.”

 

“Mrph!” he agreed, frantically nodding his head.

 

“Good. Leave us,” she ordered, gesturing towards the door with one gaunt hand before turning her attention back to Ms. Pauling. Pyro needed no further urging and fled.

 

-

 

He was out of breath and still trembling when he made it back to base. Most of the mercs, besides his two friends, had gone to bed hours ago, but the scout was still up. Ever the gossip-monger, he called out as soon as Pyro was in view, “Hey! Freakshow! Wha’d they want with ya?” His friends glared at the scout, the sniper swatting at the back of the Bostonian’s head. “Hey, what was dat for?” he squawked indignantly.

 

“Mrphmm! Hrm mph phrmm!” Pyro said, not slowing as he made a beeline for his room. Nothing! Not a thing! There was no way he was going to say anything to infuriate the Administrator further.

 

The engineer and sniper stared after him, worry evident on their faces. They also prevented the scout from following him.

 

“Wha’d he say? Wha’d he say?” the scout’s fading voice demanded of Pyro’s two friends. “C’mon, tell me! Is that freak in trouble? I bet that’s it, isn’t it?”

 

Pyro barricaded himself in his room, huddling under the blankets that still covered his mattress. He’d long since dismantled the wooden frame and burned it, so the mattress rested on the floor in the corner of the room. Balling up one of the old tattered sheets, he drizzled a bit of gasoline on it before setting it alight in the middle of his concrete floor. Any carpet that had once been in there had long since been removed and the remaining furniture was minimal and scorched. He cracked the window to let the smoke escape as he watched the sheet burn, ignoring the knocks of his friends at the door.

 

Finally, they gave up and left him alone. Once his fear had worn off, he felt bad for rebuffing them. But he could tell them tomorrow, after the meeting. He shuddered again at the memory of his interview with the Administrator, and spent the entirety of that sleepless night slowly burning through his stash of old newspapers and emergency fuel to stave off a panic attack.

 

-

 

Ms. Pauling greeted them early the next morning at breakfast, looking almost as tired as Pyro felt. “Guys,” she said wearily, “there’s been a change of plans. Please meet me in the large building in the middle of the battlefield at 8am. I’ve been sent to gather you and the other team together for a conference.”

 

She was met first with dumbfounded looks, then with disbelieving shouts from nearly everyone present.

 

“Quiet!” Heavy bellowed out above all the noise. “Ms. Pauling,” he addressed her once the other mercs had shut up enough for him to be heard, “Do you need a guard to tell enemy team this?”

 

“No, Heavy. Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” she said with a nervous smile, ignoring the scout’s shouted bravado about his amazing guarding abilities.

 

After she left them, the whole room was filled with loud chatter, most of which was speculation about the emergency and the upcoming meeting. Pyro was one of the only ones sitting silent, listening to the sniper and engineer discuss the bizarre change with the medic and spy, while the scout, demo man, and soldier shouted amongst themselves and the heavy ignored everyone.

 

Finally the spy ended the conversation with, “Monsieurs, even _I_ do not know what zhis is about. Talking is useless at zhis rate since no one has any useful information. Let us just wait and see.”

 

By the time 8am had rolled around, the mercs from both teams were all gathered in the central building, sitting shoulder to shoulder uncomfortably with their former enemies while Ms. Pauling set up the video feed. Pyro studied the ground at his feet while they waited.

 

Once the feed was set up, everyone gathered around the television set. Saxton Hale told them about Gray’s robot army, all the while fighting some sort of vicious snow ape in a warm-looking forest. They had all been rehired as one cohesive team, and their payment would come only when they destroyed robots and looted the bots for the money that they ran off of. To Pyro, it made even less sense than the conversation he had overheard last night, but he did understand one thing. They were now all on the same side. He wouldn’t be punished for helping his new teammates. They’d all probably die fighting robots, but still.

 

It was a good day.

 

He couldn’t wait to get started.


End file.
